Blockchain and Ledgers and Cryptos – Oh My!Dr. Philip PyburnClick here to show the abstract

Abstract:

The basic concepts behind blockchain are relatively straightforward: a distributed database (the “ledger”) that maintains a complete transaction history on multiple nodes of a network.

Confusingly, much that has been written about blockchain conflates this simple concept with the applications of blockchain to things like cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple etc.), smart contracts, trans-border payments, and securities settlements. In this article, we will try to clarify the differences and provide a high-level understanding of how blockchain works.

The Healthcare IT Landscape for 2011 and BeyondCharles Popper, Tom ColbergClick here to show the abstract

Abstract:

Health care is undergoing major change in response to pressure from numerous directions. Some of the drivers are forcing change upon the health care system, such as the realization that the cost to society of US health care as a whole is unsustainable. The good news is that there are also many change drivers that can properly be regarded as enablers, such as advances in information technology and new business models based on quality and accountability for outcomes.

Master Data Management and Customer Data Integration for a Global Enterprise, 2/EAlex Berson, Larry DubovClick here to show the abstract

Abstract:

Gain a complete and timely understanding of your customers using MDM-CDI and the real-world information contained in this comprehensive volume. Master Data Management and Customer Data Integration for a Global Enterprise explains how to grow revenue, reduce administrative costs, and improve client retention by adopting a customer-focused business framework.

Learn to build and use customer hubs and associated technologies, secure and protect confidential corporate and customer information, provide personalized services, and set up an effective data governance team. You’ll also get full details on regulatory compliance and the latest pre-packaged MDM-CDI software solutions.

Design and implement a dynamic MDM-CDI architecture that fits the needs of your business

Implement MDM-CDI holistically as an integrated multi-disciplinary set of technologies, services, and processes

Improve solution agility and flexibility using SOA and Web services

Recognize customers and their relationships with the enterprise across channels and lines of business

Ensure compliance with local, state, federal, and international regulations

Now eight years into the aught decade, we ought to be proficient with the controls, monitoring, risk management, and governance needed to prevent and detect the debacles that ushered in the Sarbanes Oxley act of 2002. And we should have a pretty good idea how to protect against Internet attacks and identity theft. But while you are considering that, remember the “Billion Dollar Bubble” or Equity Funding scandal (the first major so-called computer fraud) was started in 1964 and brought the company down in 1973. And the first major electronic privacy legislation was the Privacy Act of 1974 following revelations of privacy abuse during the Nixon administration.

We are in a seemingly endless race to protect our information, systems, and communications before the bad guys can bring us down—and preferably before onerous legislation forces us into rigid requirements about how to solve problems. We have built some spectacular information infrastructures, and left enough holes in them to present an inviting target to those who would hijack systems and data for fun or profit. Now, while the technology capabilities continue to expand, we are trying to plug the holes in our existing systems while hoping the new systems we implement will not create the next wave of vulnerabilities and attacks.

On the other side sat the nation’s top bank executives, who had flown in from around the country, lined up in alphabetical order by bank, with Bank of America Corp. at one end of the table and Wells Fargo & Co. at another.

It was Monday afternoon at 3 p.m. at the Treasury headquarters. Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke had called one of the most important gatherings of bankers in American history. For an hour, the nine executives drank coffee and water and listened to the two men paint a dire portrait of the U.S. economy and the unfolding financial crisis. As the meeting neared a close, each banker was handed a term sheet detailing how the government would take stakes valued at a combined $125 billion in their banks, and impose new restrictions on executive pay and dividend policies.

In the twenty-first century, when software has become a key force in daily life and its malfunctioning can threaten the public health, safety, and economic well-being, the challenge is to ensure that the quality of software systems is the highest possible. This report presents an approach to analyzing poor quality software systems, by examining their effects, the nature of their defects, and the causes of these defects. A broad theory of quality management is applied to evaluating the quality of software, and broad concepts of total quality management and six sigma are related and applied along with such concepts such as the prevention and detection of defects and estimations of reliability.

Four principles of high-quality software are developed. The first principle is that metrics for the evaluation of quality and other, associated targets need to be defined for each stage of the development life cycle for software. Second, a method for the management of quality is essential to keep the process of improvement going forward. Third, experience, expertise, and training in the planning and use of testing procedures focused on quality also are essential. And, fourth, whether or not a software system meets its requirements should be determined by independent agents-neither the developers, who were paid to produce the systems, nor the technology vendors, who sell off-the-shelf products, have the objectivity required for impartial review.

The report concludes with an analysis of the benefits of a good, comprehensive program for testing the quality of a software program, in particular, the benefits of using independent experts to manage the quality of the program.

The challenge of governing an enterprise’s Information Technology (IT) function, although of interest within the IT community for years, has recently become a concern of senior business management. Strategic alignment of IT with the business is now being emphasized, as well as approaches to management of the IT portfolio, yet efforts so far have not attained the alignment and integration senior management want. An approach to management of IT is needed that is inclusive-with a scope that truly reflects the range of activities and responsibilities of IT-and specific. This report offers such an approach to IT as a holistic framework that addresses three primary objectives: (1) it fosters strategic and tactical alignment of IT with the business; (2) it relates the cost of IT to the value brought to the business; and (3) it supports a drive toward operational excellence.